Get Active for Chickens!

Order copies of our Killing Time chicken leaflet to give to everyone you know.

Viva! needs your support. Please donate to our campaign and help us stop the misery of factory farming. Join Viva! if you are not already a supporter.

Send this sample letter to your local newspaper

Please support our campaign to end the factory farming of broiler chickens by sending this sample letter to your local newspaper’s Letters to the Editor page (Find listed under Newspapers in Yellow Pages or click here for a list). Feel free to amend it but please mention Viva!’s name and address so we can bring others into the campaign. Remember to send your name and address to the paper!

"Dear Letters to the Editor

I am writing to inform readers about the shocking life of intensively farmed broiler (‘meat’) chickens. Every year over 800 million chickens are killed in the UK for their meat. 98% of them are reared on factory farms. They are crammed into foul-smelling windowless sheds and kept together in huge numbers. Each bird is allowed an area no bigger than an A4 sheet of paper.

Animal welfare group Viva! has filmed undercover inside broiler chicken farms and revealed shocking conditions. Piled up outside the sheds on one farm were dead and rotting chickens. Inside the shed, investigators found dead and dying birds being trampled on and pecked by living ones. Some birds were so severely deformed that they were unable to stand or walk and their feet were splayed out to the sides of their bodies.

Chickens are selectively bred and pumped full of drugs to reach ‘slaughter size’ in just 41 days. Today’s chickens are slaughtered when they still ‘cheep’ - chicks in an obese adult body. By the time they are killed, most of them are crippled as their legs cannot support their body weight. Some lame birds die from starvation and dehydration as they are unable to reach food and water points.

What is equally disturbing is that in the squalor of the broiler house, infections spread like wildfire. Salmonella, Listeria, Campylobacter and botulism all thrive in the sheds. A huge percentage of birds slaughtered for human consumption have these diseases and chicken pieces are often the salvaged parts of damaged or diseased birds that cannot be sold as whole chickens.

Animal welfare group Viva! has launched a campaign to end the factory farming of chickens. We can all do our bit to end this misery by not eating chicken and opting for a vegetarian diet. For a free veggie recipe pack call Viva! on: 0117 944 1000 or write to 8 York Court, Wilder St, Bristol BS2 8QH